I’d be far from the first person to point out that the shot the planet killer beam right past a couple of operators with no guardrails or anything. It isn’t even clear how they got up there in the first place, frankly. You can even see them flinch when the beam goes past them.

Clearly the Star Wars universe has never been big on health and safety.

Alright, so this is one of those things where I keep reminding people that Star Wars movie canon and Star Wars franchise canon barely overlap.

The reason Obi Wan gives Luke for lightsabers in the first place is just cool factor, too. Lightsabers just seem classy. Nobody says it’s particularly powerful, just that they’re old fashioned and “less random and clumsy” than blasters. Luke handles his like a toy, Obi Wan pretty much gives it to him as a memento, he says he “almost forgot” he had it stashed because Luke’s dad wanted to hand it to him but his uncle didn’t let him. Obi Wan uses one in plain view of people and nobody even goes “Hey, look, a Jedi, I thought they were gone”. Hell, they sit down for a pint and a bit of bartering with Han immediately after that. The Empire officers, who at this point clearly don’t particularly respect Vader, seem to think he looks like a goofball waving that thing around and making grandiose claims about the power of the Force when they’re literally sitting inside a showstopper doomsday device.

All the justifications for how little sense lightsabers make and why only Jedi seem to carry them is after the fact retconning of the barely-coherent implications of the original movie.

“Perfectly fucking vertical…!”

Come on, it’s a Star Wars Memes forum. We’ve all seen the thing.

One in-universe argument would be that you generally have more precision and striking force with two hands, as opposed to one-handing. This somewhat mirrors some of the “Longswords” that were designed to allow two-handed use, but could also be used with one. Using two weapons at once effectively isn’t quite as easy in real life as it’s made out to be in games and movies (not impossible, just harder to coordinate) but Jedi could obviously circumvent that issue by being space wizards.

Using a Blaster in the second hand would therefore sacrifice melee capabilities, where it seems their command of the force gives them a significant edge over most opponents.

Of course, the ranged capabilities might offset that, but I assume that, up to the Clone Wars, Jedi didn’t often deal with a large number of ranged combatants. Where their reputation wasn’t enough to deterr attacks, their premonition and weapon capable of deflecting shots will have dealt with most attackers, and if they’re ambushed in close quarters the sword would be more useful too.

My reasoning here is that both protections and weapons usually evolve in response to evolutions in the other. If Jedi often enough faced fire so heavy that deflection alone wasn’t enough and some kind of armor would have increased their chances of survival, I would assume they’d wear some (as you see it in the Clone Wars cartoons and the Old Republic games). Equally, if situations where a ranged weapon would have been desirable were a common occurrence, I would assume that the Jedi would eventually have adopted them.

Some degree of reluctance may be explained by religious adherence to their sacred weapon, such that they stuck with it even when the situations they faced evolved during the Clone Wars. Additionally, adopting new doctrines can take time even among less dogmatically rigid organisations.

As someone else replied, a survivor of the Jedi Purge did end up incorporating the Blaster into his arsenal. Without the Order’s dogmatic constraints or a lifetime’s worth of “This is what I’ve always been using”, the barriers of acceptance are much lower. Compounding this, the new threat environment features professional, highly trained soldiers that – memes notwithstanding – are genuinely dangerous marksmen. Under the circumstances, expanding your arsenal beyond the traditional is the pragmatic choice of “uncivilised” survival over dogmatically pure death.

Or just stop your enemy’s heart with your mind.

I have no source for this, but I believe there are some who can do that. It’s just that focusing your force to reach deep into a living creature’s body isn’t quite so trivial to do in the middle of combat.

Or use your super-fast running abilities to jab a fork in your enemy’s eye or something.

At that point, what’s the advantage of the fork over the lightsaber? But I’d assume improvised weapons are a part of their arsenal too, it’s just not as flashy as the bright lightsabers.

In the semi-alternate reality of the original movie they sure seem like they do. I mean, Obi Wan King Kais from the afterlife specifically to tell Luke to use the Force to torpedo the exhaust port. And to be clear, that’s because the automated targeting system wasn’t getting a lock, so that’s some superhuman nonsense shot to freehand.

And he may find blasters “uncivilized”, but he claims Luke’s dad was a great combat pilot, so they clearly weren’t above a good ole strafing run.

Honestly, a big part of why Star Wars used to be fun is the lore makes no sense whatsoever and is mostly left offscreen to operate under sheer dream logic.

In Jedi Survivor, Cal Kestis basically mirrors

who fights exclusively with blasters and a saber, and you can utilize a blaster/saber hybrid stance. So if the game is Canon, then a jedi using a blaster combined with a saber is a new form of combat formed after the fall of the jedi

Edit: realized I put a spoiler in even though the game was released two years ago

Nice. I’m sure it was decided after the fact, But it’s a cool fix to the problem , so rule of cool wins.

“Don’t worry Anikin, I’ve set my saber to ‘joy buzzer’ strength.”